'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

Is this doctor well? Why is BBC Scotland allowing an ill-informed hysterical rant to scare the people?

This anaesthetist is not an infection prevention specialist. There are many of those working across NHS Scotland. None have made such ludicrous claims.

The crises in Italy and Spain have little if anything to do with events in hospitals but are the consequence of a failure by politicians to impose restrictions on football events soon enough and a similar slowness in encouraging social distancing.

NHS Scotland has a coronavirus infection and mortality rate far lower than in these countries and, for that matter, only half that of the UK average. Anyone looking at the statistical trends can see that things are under control here far more than in most other countries.

There is no need to panic!

NHS Scotland should be praised and not subject to such ill-informed, hysterical rants, exploited by the BBC.

14 thoughts on “Is this doctor well? Why is BBC Scotland allowing an ill-informed hysterical rant to scare the people?”

Over the past week or so, I have noticed something strange on the BBC’s website coverage of Covid -19. When you click on the tab for Scotland, the number of deaths in Scotand is very prominent, often on the first image and for that day and sometimes much of the next day.

It is fairly easy to find the death rates for Wales and Northern Ireland but they are usually a bit further down the news order.

Try doing the same for England or even the UK as a whole and the results are burried at the bottom.

And as for finding the total death rate for London, the current epicentre of the virus in the UK? Good luck with that one.

The ease of finding, the level of detail given, and the clarity (graphs and table) of the various statistics concerning cases in Scotland is remarkably different (so much better – and more ‘transparent’) on the BBC News website compared to what the site provides for the other countries of the UK. All the graphs and table for the Scotland statistics are attributed by the BBC to the Scottish Government.

So I wonder: is this marked difference in information provision a consequence of what the BBC CHOOSES to communicate on the different parts of the UK or a consequence of what it is ABLE to communicate based on what it can source?

Yes I was just about to say the same clicked on the BBC and had to do a quick mental arithmetic to deduce the actual death rate for England but not just the BBC but SKy also swiftly moved away from giving the death rate for England onto other Covid-19 news on testing. Very odd but not unexpected…. they are scared stiff that they will discover the pandemic is being better managed in Scotland.

This is rather unusual, for a highly qualified medic, attention seeking behaviour. On the hand-sanitiser matter she might have had a positive response from the NHS by emailing her concerns and suggested improvements to the appropriate people within the organisation – but no, it was done through the megaphone of the BBC.

This new intervention through the medium of our national broadcaster by its very nature is only going to increase feelings of alarm in those who hear it. Don’t she and her ‘friends’ in the BBC understand that negativity and fear-mongering are the very last things the already stressed people of Scotland need fed to them.

It would seem that a moment in the limelight of current media activity doesn’t involve any sense of responsibility.

About 20 years ago, perhaps longer, I can recall a conversation I had with the then Education Correspondent of the Herald. She was well-informed about Scottish education and clearly had strongly supportive views of public education. At that period, barely a day went past without a story about things going on at Hutcheson’s Grammar School in Glasgow (always headlined as ‘top’ or ‘leading’ school). Many of these things were really no more than title tattle and about the vanity of small differences amongst different cliques in the parent body and their favoured teachers. These stories had little of interest for people who sent their children to local schools or, indeed, to other fee-paying schools in the West of Scotland.

When I asked her about this, she replied that the kind of people with whom the editor attended dinner parties” were interested in these kinds of things, they were very important to them.”

I wonder if Ms Henderson ‘goes to dinner parties’ with people in the BBC (Mr John Beattie, perhaps?) and, since she is a consultant, is asked or gives her opinions at these gatherings and gets invited on to be a ‘pundit’.

Of course her knowledge and expertise in medicine is superior to mine, but, she is, as you point out an ‘anaesthetist’ and not a consultant in public health, of which NHS GG has many. If, say, a dentist, were to give an opinion on the anaesthetics service in Glasgow, would she be happy? Undoubtedly, dentists have experience in anaesthetics and my own dentists’s sister is an anaesthetist, but almost all will observe the boundaries of their expertise.

I guess some people will never learn , never change their attitude , during this time of real fear amongst many elderly folk , we still get this set of well rehearsed unionist lies , they can’t help themselves , during Scottish Questions yesterday I believe , we had a succession of Tory MPs attempting to put the boot in this lot of hyenas were joined by a bloody labour mp and a Welsh one at that , most of these low life’s couldn’t find Jockland on a bloody map , haven’t they noticed we don’t want any of them that’s why we don’t vote for them it’s very easy f/k off .

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com